Somewhere Outside of Vancouver
by emerald1198
Summary: Two months ago, Becky Baker would have represented everything Jonah needed to complete his life turn-around. But now, Becky's world is rapidly losing light, and—despite everything he feels for her—Jonah fears that, by sifting through the shadows of Becky's life, he may inadvertently be allowing some back into his own. Bonah. Possible multi-fic.


I think this might be one of the first Bonah fics out there as of right now—which I find incredibly odd because, I don't know about you guys, but I was really taken with these two, especially Jonah's character. Here's to hoping we see some more of them.

As of right now, I don't have anything else written for this—and if you follow me, you know that I don't usually do too well with multi-shots. This was originally intended to be a one-shot, but I'll admit: I've become a tad more invested in it than expected. Anyway, I guess I'll see what the response is to this and go from there. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read and possibly review, favorite, and/or follow.

Um, what else? I have a tumblr and figment link on my profile—if you're not already here because of tumblr, that is. Reblog this if you want. That's always appreciated.

Happy Canada Day to all you Canadians out there!

* * *

He was at this party, looking at this girl.

Jonah can still remember it right now, even though he was drunk or high or something. Probably high. Drinking blacks you out. High on the light stuff—weed, maybe shrooms—was always best. You could forget and remember anything you wanted to with that shit.

Anyway, he was looking at this girl, and he remembers she was swaying around with everybody else—giggling, dancing off balance, falling into embraces with other blurry, gangling people.

Jonah was sitting down, sort of across the room, he thinks. Some girl's legs were on his lap, just there because they could be. He doesn't remember _that_ girl's face—the one brushing her feet closer and closer to his crotch. Maybe he never looked at it. He just remembers this other girl, across the room.

She wasn't big or small—just full and good-looking in a way that she probably didn't even realize, or, at least, didn't know what to do about—and she had short, puffy blonde hair that fell over her eyes and made her look more like she belonged here. He remembers she laughed and danced with this one drunk guy, but when his hand started to brush up against her bare stomach, she pulled away.

Jonah remembers snorting at that—the sound just coming out of him like it was programmed to. Like, right then, he could just as easily have been the douche trying to grope this girl back into his arms. After that, he felt sick. More bitter inside than he had in a long time. And he kept watching the girl—intent on slugging anyone else who tried to touch her.

She was probably some high school sophomore or junior—some girl who plays a sport or two, and stays after sometimes to help Student Government set up for fundraisers, and takes pictures for the school newspaper, and goes home from places like this to do homework, even though she tells everyone she'll probably blow it off tonight. She was probably that kind of girl.

And she wasn't even high. Jonah—even stoned himself—could tell just by looking at her. To this girl, the room was still a room. And the people she was tripping over were still people. And, in that moment, for that girl, there was nothing to hate about anything or anybody. Nothing to run away from. Nothing to smudge out of her head.

And he remembers thinking to himself, _Go home. Go home if you don't have to be here._

* * *

Later on—a long time later on—when his therapist, Scott, asked him if he could remember one time back then when he knew he needed help, Jonah thought about describing that moment, that girl. He didn't, though. He figured things like that were only important in books and movies, where you could screen-cap them, slow them down, make them look all shiny and shit.

So, instead, he talked about the time he woke up in some random guy's basement, head throbbing against a concrete floor, and Mitch—his old dealer and sort of best friend until then—nowhere to be found. He told Scott that that was the big moment. It made more sense. Didn't sound so stupid.

But the truth is, all he was thinking that morning was, _Shit, where's my stash? I think someone stole it._

* * *

Drew Torres is not really a bad guy.

(He's what Jonah, on his more irritable days, would call a _stupid_ guy, sure. He listens to popular, repetitive music that he thinks is rock 'n' roll even though it's far from it, and he talks about sex all the time, even if it's never in front of Becky.)

But he's not a bad guy.

When he invites Jonah to the party, he doesn't do it in front of Becky, and he also doesn't do it with hard, warning eyes. Jonah can tell that, even if he used to be that guy—the one that would invite someone like Jonah for show or for sport—he's not anymore. He's tired of being that way.

Instead, he just jogs up to Jonah in the hallway, wearing something between a sweater and a sweatshirt that makes his arms look smaller than they are, and he smiles at him—eyes and all. He tells Jonah that there's a party at his place tonight, _right off Queen Street_ , and he's welcome to show up and, _hey, maybe even bring his guitar. Becky would love that._

Jonah hates not-bad guys—especially when there's not enough to hate about them.

* * *

Here's the thing about their timing:

He tells himself that it was just off, that he was just a little too unlucky like usual. And if he'd shown up here a month or two earlier, it'd be him kissing her between bells and meeting her grandmother and winning her back every time he fucked something up. It would've been him holding her against his chest during that thunderstorm, the night she and Drew got together. (He asked her about it once, and she answered him like it didn't mean anything, like he might as well have just been some distant relative or friend—an aunt or someone flying in—asking, "So, how'd you two start dating?" She answered him like that's the way he'd asked, but he knows she must've seen it in his eyes. She must have.)

Anyway, though, the truth is that, even if their timing wasn't perfect, it wasn't shitty either. It wasn't even unlucky.

The truth is that, last year, she was in California—her hair lighter and her skin darker and the cross around her neck less confusing. She was the Sweetheart at some nursing home and Mary in some church play, and half the school rolled their eyes around her, because everyone but Becky knew that her brother had been sleeping around since freshmen year.

And Jonah was up in Vancouver, listening to Mitch tell him who was alright to sell to and who would fuck you over—as if Jonah was going to be just like him any day now. He'd listen to guys like Mitch say gross, meaningless things about girls like Becky—Jesus and abstinence and church jokes. The kind of things that, in order to truly, really think are funny, you have to be the kind of person that just doesn't get it and never will. And, at night, with smoke and darkness and ego floating all over, they'd talk about how much they'd give to fuck a girl like that, just once. And never would it cross Jonah's mind that someone ought to tell them to cut that shit out.

* * *

So, here's the real thing about their timing, the truth about it:

While he was in Vancouver, she was in California. While Old Him was around, she wasn't.

And to ask for better timing than that is just selfish.

* * *

He's careful not to show up even remotely early. He leaves half an hour late, even for someone who knows exactly where he's going—which Jonah doesn't. There's something about Queen Street that makes it infinitely harder to navigate at night.

At least, here, everything is lit up—bright and yellow and warmly open to anybody who might make a mistake, might have been looking for a different party. On the outside of Vancouver, everything was dark. If you didn't know where you were going, you didn't get there.

Becky calls him from the party. When he sees her name on his phone—just for the split second before he answers—he pretends like they're a few years older, together and in love and sharing an apartment, and he's on his way home from work, and she's calling to ask when he's going to be home and whether or not he's eaten yet. City streets and girls you're secretly in love with tend to do that to you.

"Jonah?" She's yelling over stupid, not-rock-'n'-roll music.

"Yeah?" But then he realizes he's barely spoken, so he says it again, loud enough for her to hear this time: "Yeah?"

"Are you on your way?"

There's a pause, and then, for some unknown reason—as if his tongue is thinking this through before his brain's gotten around to it—he says:

"I don't know if this is my scene, Becky." He's stopped walking now. He's just standing next to a small, American Traditional tattoo parlor with a flickering sign.

"What are you talking about? Of course it is! Besides, I told everyone we were playing tonight, so if you don't show up, I'm a big fat liar, and it's all your fault."

He laughs. "Okay, okay, I'm almost there."

* * *

When Jonah finally shows up, Drew is completely wasted already, and Dallas is drinking out of an old hockey trophy. The two are on the outside of their own party, it seems like—leaning up against a window by the front door.

"Who invited the theatre kid?" Dallas grunts, and Drew looks up before snorting.

"That's not Eli. That's Jonah, Dipshit—the one from Becky's band"—and, then, turning to Jonah—"Sorry, man. He's done for the night."

Jonah smirks as best he can, offering Drew a one-swipe wave. He holds up his guitar, hoping it'll raise the question of Becky's location, but Drew just smiles and says, "Awesome!"

Unable to find the words, Jonah only nods back and makes his way into a throng of smudgy, sweaty strangers. Half of them Jonah's never even seen at school. He figures Drew's just one of those guys—the kind who is linked to so many people that whenever he has a party, people just show up.

* * *

She's out on the porch—the same one he came in through.

By the time he finds her, Jonah feels like he's seen every bright, burning face of this party at least twice. And his shoulder, he's just realizing, is sore from lugging his guitar everywhere. He rolls it a few times, the resulting popping sound loud enough to make Becky turn around.

Even before she turns around—if just for that split second—he can tell something's wrong. Jonah feels like he's just discovered a crying girl, even though Becky's eyes are dry.

"Jonah," she whispers— _mouths_ , almost, it's so quiet. Then she clears her throat. "I came out here to wait for you. I must have just missed you."

"It's alright," he murmurs, a little hesitantly—and then, when she doesn't say anything—"I mean, thanks—thanks, that was nice of you."

She smiles half-heartedly, then takes a small sip of the drink that's been resting in her lap. He notices that she has to swallow hard.

"That alcohol?" He croaks.

She looks at him a little sheepishly, but also tiredly—almost as if she's just faking the embarrassment. "It's just—yeah, I mean, it's the real light stuff." He raises his eyebrows. After a beat, she says, "Oh, c'mon—don't look at me like that. It's just one drink."

Jonah smirks. "Can I have a sip?"

"Sure."

He takes the cup and chugs what's left—more than he was hoping for, but he manages.

"Jonah!" She squeals.

He laughs, still coughing a little bit. "What? That shit's no good for you anyway."

"Watch your mouth," she mumbles, still grinning and shaking her head.

"Stop putting Long Island Iced Tea in yours," he shoots back, still smirking—and then ever slightly more seriously—"Seriously, that stuff'll make you go blurry quicker than you think. And your boyfriend's already decided to be the irresponsible one tonight, so—"

"Drew's not my boyfriend," she says. She cuts him off rather abruptly to say it, and then smiles a little sheepishly.

"Wh—But I thought that—?"

"No, no. We—uh—we broke up. There was this whole thing with Clare and the baby. I dumped a mango slushy on him. It's a long story. We're okay now, though."

"He broke up with you just because you spilled a frozen drink on him?"

"Jonah!" She socks him lightly on the arm. For a moment, she laughs hard, her eyes back to normal, but then she looks away, out over the city and—when she thinks he doesn't notice—lets out a little, tired sigh. It makes Jonah's chest tighten a little.

"Are you okay?"

"Hm?" She looks up, her eyes alight. "Yeah, yeah. Of course. I just—I—yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

Jonah just stands there, his mouth still a little open, unsure of what to say—until, finally, Becky keeps going:

"I just—I saw Luke the other day. With my family this time. And I knew it would be hard—I _knew_ that—but it's just, there I am—I'm standing right there in front of him, listening to him say that _he_ accepts _my apology_ —and my Dad's not saying anything, just nodding and smiling—and I keep thinking, that's my _Dad._ I keep picturing him at a pulpit and teaching my Sunday School class—and even just being a _dad_ —like reading me stories and teaching me to ride a bike—" Her voice is getting heavy now, and she won't turn to face him—"I just keep thinking, _How can you live with yourself?_ And I know they're my family, and that I'm terrible for—"

Without thinking, Jonah takes a step forward and wraps his arms tight around her, burying his face into her shoulder and making her gasp. "You're the farthest thing from a terrible person that I've ever met," he whispers against her neck—and then adds, with a snort—"Granted, I have met mostly really shitty people."

She lets out a laugh—shaky and watery, but real. " _Mouth_ ," she reminds him again.

"Sorry," he murmurs, seriously now, and—in a move that feels like it has to be his most daring to date, at least since Old Him—kisses her softly on the neck.

Becky shudders, leaning back into his arms.

"So, are we playing tonight or what?" He asks, rubbing both her arms.

She chuckles. "Yeah, _about_ that one . . . I may have just said that to make sure you came. Look at those people in there—I think we're more of a 'coffee and soberness' kind of band."

* * *

After a few more jokes, Becky suggests that they go down to Drew's basement. She's _sick of the loud music, and she just wants to listen to Jonah strum the guitar. It's been a weird night._

But, now, his guitar is still in its case, leaning up against the side of the stairwell, and Becky is starting to wander through a screen door, outside into the darkness.

"So, what kind of party is this anyway—a yes!-it's-not-actually-my-kid party?"

Becky giggles. It's different than usual, though. It makes his stomach quiver more, his chest feel lighter. Jonah realizes that he's never heard her laugh in the dark. Never really even seen her past six o'clock.

There's that one night at the Dot, maybe. But, then, she was lit up by fake, yellow lights—standing around people who seemed just as fake and yellow. With Drew's arm laced through hers, and the room doused in light and reason, it didn't feel like nighttime. It didn't feel like a good idea to do anything stupid.

Now, the two are all alone, outside on some patio thing connected to the Torres basement. It's not a starry night, really. Even if it was, it'd be pretty hard to tell with all these trees. But it's dark, for sure. And all the yellow lights and yellow people are upstairs somewhere, dancing and drinking and certainly not looking for them. It's no movie-moment or anything. It's not even a shiny one. But it's enough to make him feel like now's the time.

"I don't know," she murmurs. Jonah realizes, somewhere in all these extra heartbeats, he's missed something. She's sad, all of a sudden. "He parties whether he's happy or sad or both. He just parties all the time."

Jonah tries to remind himself that this is the first time she's seeing him in the dark, too—that, maybe, she's feeling a little closer to doing something stupid tonight, too. And her something-stupid will hurt more than his, he knows it. So, maybe, it's up to him to stop it.

"I don't know what I'd be feeling either, if I was him."

Becky looks at him then, with something that isn't really distress or surprise or anything—but, whatever it is, it's making her eyes glisten in the darkness.

Suddenly, there's something sour at the core of his stomach, after saying that. He keeps picturing Old Him on some street corner, hearing from some strange, dark-eyed girl that he got her pregnant. And then he pictures himself calling her crazy—a whore, a slut, who doesn't know what the hell she's talking about or who she's even fucked in the past few months. And then, he's leaving her, and she's crying smudgy tears out of her smudgy eyes and—

"Jonah?"

She takes a step toward him. Her eyes are still doing that glistening thing. He wishes he knew what it was, the thing that's lighting them up.

"Yeah?"

She smiles a little. He realizes it's the kind of smile that people make when they're about to say something they didn't expect to actually have to.

"You're crying."

But he honest-to-God hasn't known it until now. He reaches up to touch his cheek, and, sure enough, there it is—hot and wet and stinging. He wonders how something that is suddenly burning this much could have lasted so long, completely unnoticed, on his cheeks and in his eyes.

"I don't know why," he laughs, wiping the tears away.

She probably thinks he's high or something.

He has to keep reminding himself that she doesn't think about him like that—she didn't know him back then.

Becky smiles, softly this time. "Nothing wrong with sensitivity," she jibes. By this point, she's taken enough steps toward him that he can reach out and shove her playfully. She giggles again. It's so hard to get used to the sound down here, at this time.

Embarrassed, Jonah turns around, taking a few steps back into the basement. There's a light on in the back where Dallas sleeps, but besides that, it's almost as dim in here as it was outside. Becky follows him. She flops down onto the couch closest to the screen door, slinging her legs over the side to make room for him.

"Drew's family's pretty loaded, huh?" Jonah chuckles, making his way over to sit with her.

"Yeah," she mumbles, "I hate this house, though."

Jonah sits down beside her. For a moment, he thinks she might put her legs in his lap, like that faceless girl at that party, back in the other world. But she doesn't—just shifts them over to make room. He's glad. He's worried that, had she done the legs-in-lap thing, he might have started crying again.

"Why?"

Becky looks at him then. Jonah can tell that there're two answers, a simple one and a heavy one, but he can't tell which Becky is about to give him. Before he can think too much about it, she just shrugs. "I don't know. It just depresses me—all the parties and stuff. It's just a sad place."

"Yeah, party houses always make me sad, too."

She doesn't say anything back, but she doesn't half-laugh either. She gets it, he thinks.

"So, are you two going to get back together? Now that he's not going to make you a step mom?" Jonah knows he's pushing it—that he ought to just wait until tomorrow, until everything is yellow again, and maybe that'll remind him of all the things he's having trouble remembering now.

Becky snorts—at the "step mom" thing, he thinks. But then, out of the laughter, she sighs, "I don't know, Jonah." It's tired, the way she says it.

This is it, he tells himself. He can't wait for a shiny moment. She's here right now.

Decidedly turning off his brain, Jonah leans forward and pulls her face to his, kissing her hard and soft. The kiss doesn't feel like it's coming from the person he is now, but it also doesn't quite feel like it's coming from the person he used to be.

He pulls back for a moment, looking into her blue, jarring eyes. How did any of this happen? How did he pick himself up off that concrete floor and somehow make it here, to her?

She reacts then, leaning in to reconnect their lips, twisting her fingers in his hair. His hands find her bare waist, kneading the skin—and suddenly, her tongue is in his mouth, and she's moving to straddle his waist, and her nails are tracing down his stomach, and—

Becky makes a little noise—a soft whimper that almost sounds like she's in pain. Jonah pulls away for a moment, scared he's hurt her, but there's no trace of discomfort in Becky's eyes. Their usual innocent alertness has been replaced by a dark, lidded lust. It scares him. His stomach flops over, seeing her like this. By the time her lips start trailing down his neck, it's too late.

"Becky," he murmurs, his hands gently cradling her head—an attempt to counteract her own desperate movements. She only answers him with a soft, little mumble against his collar bone. It's a noise that almost sends him back, almost gets him to close his eyes again.

"Would it really be that wrong?" She gasps, her face level with his again—foreheads resting against each other, lips brushing. "It can't be, can it? Not when it feels this nice. Not when I like you so much."

"Becky—"

"Let's just forget. Let's forget about everything right now. Can we do that?"

"What about you and Drew?" He's not sure why that's the first thing to come out of his mouth. There are a million other reasons—more pressing ones—that this can't happen right now. Maybe, it's just the simplest one. He has a feeling a more complicated reason might just make her kiss him harder.

"We're not together," she breathes, trying to bring her lips back to his, "I told you that."

As gently as possible, he turns his head slightly to the side. "Your faith then. _Our_ faith."

"You've done this before, though, right? Haven't you?"

It doesn't slip by Jonah that she hasn't really answered him. He puts a hand on both of her shoulders, pushing her back. " _You_ haven't."

She giggles—that same, strange sound. Only now, it's more than just unfamiliar. It's disconcerting. "Yeah, well, I want to now."

"I don't have protection."

"Dallas' nightstand. Right around the corner."

"What if Dallas or somebody needs to come down here?"

"They won't."

He's out of simple reasons. He lets go of her arms, untangling his legs from hers. "Becky, you know we can't actually do this. What's going on? You're starting to scare me a little bit."

Suddenly, her eyes grow wider—a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. She's just starting to realize that Jonah's been in control the whole time, that she's the only one losing it right now. "You don't want to?" She's still a little breathless, but a hint of accusation is seeping into her eyes.

"I—Becky, it's not—" He can't think. Flashes of those city lights and her name on his phone and Drew Torres' sweater-arms are trying to meld with all the things that were so startlingly real a moment ago—the skin of her waist and the desire in her eyes. He can't think.

"You don't want to." Her eyes are hard. She's not asking anymore.

"It's so much more complicated than that," he pleads. "You're not thinking clearly right now."

Something dangerous flashes in her eyes. There's a long pause and then:

"What if I told you I'm worried that, for the first time in my life, I _am_ thinking clearly?"

"What do you mean, Becky?" He breathes, but he knows what she means. Maybe, he's known since that first song.

( _And the bright, smiling girls always know how to lose it—and never let it show._ )

* * *

Here's the thing about their timing (maybe the truth—he's not sure anymore):

It's shittier than he originally thought.

* * *

She's dancing with a drunk guy now, out on the dancefloor.

He's just had to spend a few moments in the Torres basement, breathing and thinking and readjusting his belt (which probably just got twisted up—he doesn't think she touched it with her hands, but, maybe, she did. Maybe, it all happened too fast for him to notice or remember.)

And now, she's dancing with a drunk guy—a tall, dark-haired guy who's digging his fingers into her hips, and pressing his body against her. Becky's eyes are watery. She doesn't smile when his hand starts to nudge her shirt up, creating a strip of skin on her bare stomach to touch. She also doesn't push him away. She just stays there, eyes closed tight, like she's waiting for something to kick in—anything.

The guy kind of looks like Mitch. In that moment, it is him. Jonah's eyes are burning—his fists clenching up at his waist.

For the last time tonight, he shuts off all his thoughts, and in only a few swift movements, he pushes through the strangers, yanks the guy away from Becky, and hits him hard across the face.

The guy's taller and larger than Jonah, though. He doesn't even go down—just sort of stumbles back into a cushion of other dancers, clutching at his cheek. Jonah's vaguely aware of Becky yelling, trying to pry the guy away—

And then Jonah's head is hitting the ground, hard.

It's linoleum, he thinks, but it sure as hell hurts like concrete.


End file.
